Why I Came to Chile: LAKE CRABS

Well this Wednesday I went to Pangipulle to collect my lake sample of crabs. (For river crabs click here) Collecting the crabs probably took all of 30 minutes. I love how collecting crabs takes like no time at all. When Nicole goes hunting for frogs it's several hours to days. I don't know how she does it. 

Dr. Jara, Erwin and I drove to Pangipulle. We got there and there was a professor there who had already put the traps in earlier and pulled some out and put the traps in again. So when we got there we just hopped into the boat and checked the traps again. 

At this point we have 20 males and 16 females (I needed 30 of each). Since we needed more we left the traps down there over night. It is believed that the crabs are more active during the night so we expected to get more in the morning. 

While there we met up a Ph D class that was also being held in the area by Dr. Jara and his associates. We had dinner with the students and the other professors. I basically felt small and inadequate the whole time. There was no one there with less than a Ph D, besides me. Someone asked me what I was working on, my graduate thesis or Ph D thesis. I looked gobsmacked. I quietly answered I was still an undergraduate. What I really wanted to say was: Man, I just want a degree of some sort! and Do I look that old? 

That night we stayed in a Cabana near the lake.

The next morning we got into the boat again and checked the traps. We just got close to the traps, pulled them up and took out the crabs! Wa-la!

We had enough crabs that we needed!

The rest of the day Dr. Jara showed us around to some of cool things to see in the area. He likes to call it "doing some tourism." This is where I got my cool volcano picture. I also got to see the Andes for the first time while here in Chile. 

Then when we were getting ready to leave, and while I was thinking thank goodness I survived this trip!, someone invited us to come back the next day for the big ending BBQ for the class. Great. Looks like I have another chance to be awkward.